Topic:science friday

Muskoxen are not the only charismatic creatures perfectly suited to the wind-blasted, tundra of the Alaskan Arctic. Meet Joel Berger, Wildlife Conservation Society senior scientist, Colorado State University professor...

Artist, designer, inventor, and Stanford professor John Edmark creates sculptures that are driven by precise mathematics, but his interest in spiral geometries is driven by something more enigmatic... "a search for un...

Although it's well known that seahorses and their cousins the pipefish are the only vertebrates where males become pregnant, researchers have only begun to understand how this unique adaptation works. By studying the ...

Mushrooms come in a wide variety of species, they recycle dead plants which helps to create nutrient soil, and they can be turned into food, furniture, packaging, leather, and more. Enter MycoWorks, a team of engineer...

So often, knowing someone who deals with a challenge can help us become more empathetic and more aware of possible solutions for that challenge. Having grown up with a father who she felt was "boxed in" by his manual ...

Using scissors, tape, and reams of creativity, Matthew Reinhart engineers paper to bend, fold, and transform into fantastic creatures, structures and locales. By adjusting the angles of folds and the depth of layers, ...

With thousands of chemically-sensitive suckers, color-changing skin, and a brain that literally stretches when they eat, octopuses seem like aliens living in our oceans. Understanding their physical adaptations and ho...

Death Valley is the driest place in the United States and is known as the hottest place on Earth (though there are places that are hotter). On top of that, average rainfall is less than 2 inches (5 cm). How can a plac...

The next time you're going out in the snow, take a magnifying glass with you and see if you can find an elusive 12-sided snowflake... and if you don't happen to see that one, take note of the ones you do find. Is it n...

Why do we wash our hands after we've been riding on public transportation? Is it true that "using the handrails on the subway is like shaking hands with 100 people"? New York City-based typographer and designer Craig ...

"A furry little rodent version of a Tyrannosaurus Rex," the jerboa has tiny forelimbs, a "noodle" tail that helps with them with balance, long legs and really long feet, with toes that support their speedy hops.
W...

If there's no snow outside, try growing your own snowflakes. From Science Friday's collection of Holiday Science features and experiments, learn how to grow snowflakes in a bottle. Caltech physicist, snowflake expert,...

Studying bats can be smelly and messy, but bat biologist Nickolay Hristov explains why he finds his job to be such an exhilarating endeavor. As he attends to high speed cameras at a cave mouth in South Central Texas, ...

Microgravity, different kinds of light, extreme conditions... Growing while in orbit or on Mars are two experiences that earthbound organisms have never needed to adapt to in our evolutionary history. How do our bodie...

Not seen or collected for science since 1933, the oblong rocksnail of Alabama's Cahaba River was declared extinct in 2000. In 2011, biology grad student Nathan Whelan took a second look at a tiny rock he had picked up...

Crawling, swimming, embracing, squeezing, camouflaging... running? Why would an agile octopus, like the algae octopus or the coconut octopus, choose to use two of their eight arms to stand up and "run" backwards? Mont...

From Science Friday's The Macroscope, Post Doctoral Researcher Stephanie Bush of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) introduces us to a tiny Opisthoteuthis deep-sea octopus, a creature that's in the s...